Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use nefarious in a sentence

12 example sentences · adjective

Nefarious means sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics. Example: “Aliens have a nefarious connotation in many science fiction books.”

Examples of nefarious by meaning

adjectiveSinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics.

  • Aliens have a nefarious connotation in many science fiction books.
  • The fact that the room was still in darkness made it obvious that something nefarious was afoot.1921, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 26, in The Indiscretions of Archie
  • “I try to let everyone back here in Minnesota know exactly the nefarious activities that are taking place in Washington.”2009 October 14, Monica Davey, “Fact Checker Finds Falsehoods in Remarks”, in New York Times, retrieved 12 May 2014

More sentences with nefarious

  • If those meddlesome kids hadn't turned me in, I'd have gotten away with my nefarious scheme!From the entry meddlesome
  • The leftwise action aims at what drifts out of the nunka domain of the nefarious.2006, Arne Røkkum, Nature, ritual, and society in Japan's Ryukyu Islands, page 151. From the entry mortuary
  • Those whom he caught became his allies and were obliged to assist him in his nefarious warfare.1914, James Baldwin, In My Youth: From the Posthumous Papers of Robert Dudley, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, published 1914, page 343. From the entry black man
  • Magic soon came to recognized for its entertainment value, though its more nefarious side could not be forgotten easily.2019, Bharat Rao, Magical. From the entry entertainment value
  • You feel nervous that they'll return unexpectedly and catch you at something nefarious, even if the someone is in jail.2010 [1997], Stephen Greenleaf, Past Tense, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 47. From the entry skulduggerous
  • Kleptocrats pose a serious threat to global security as this money can be used for espionage, terrorism, political manipulation, disinformation, and many other nefarious purposes.2024 September 27, Jess Daly, “Russia Evading US Sanctions Through Shell Companies”, in UNITED24 Media, retrieved 02 Oct 2024. From the entry kleptocrat
  • The goals of IRC bots vary widely, such as automatically kicking other users off or more nefarious things like spamming other IRC users.2009, Ryan Farley, Xinyuan Wang, “Roving Bugnet: Distributed Surveillance Threat and Mitigation”, in Dimitris Gritzalis, Javier López…. From the entry bot
  • "The alternative would have been to let the country believe that there were all kinds of shady, nefarious bits of commess going on inside here," he said.2012 April 10, “ASP Maharaj is new SSA director”, in Trinidad & Tobago Express. From the entry commess
  • This unexplored domain of maledictology offers unique possibilities to those nefarious individuals who may desire to convey either erotic, lecherous, licentious or profane and abusive messages.2005, Reinhold Aman, Maledicta, volume 10, page 44. From the entry maledictology

Meaning of nefarious

  1. adjective Sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics.

Full definition of nefarious

Questions about nefarious in a sentence

How do you use nefarious in a sentence?
Nefarious is used as an adjective. For example: “Aliens have a nefarious connotation in many science fiction books.”
What is a short sentence with nefarious?
“Aliens have a nefarious connotation in many science fiction books.”
What does nefarious mean?
Nefarious means sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nefarious (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use nefarious in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/nefarious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.